• Published 24th Sep 2017
  • 1,160 Views, 61 Comments

Mares und Panzer - re- Yamsmos



The world was almost at war some fifteen years ago. Almost. A last-second peace was declared, which left the new wartime inventions from machine guns to airplanes to rot. It'd be a shame to waste them. Every year, the world play-fights... in tanks!

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Everyone Please Stop The Fight! I Have To Work Hard Today!

"Ute!"

BOOM!

She scrambled for her binoculars with the finesse and poise of the eggs she'd tried cooking up earlier in the morning as the blast echoed in her stomach and shook her recently-downed lunch around awhile. Yanking them from their position across her chest—and almost choking herself with the nylon strap—she raised the glass over her eyes and peered through, watching as the red beam soared through the clear blue air toward the grassy field in the far distance. She narrowed her gaze and sucked in a breath...

...and saw a large cloud of brown earth fling into the air that was quickly replaced by a puff of dark gray smoke, which fizzled into the air and very gradually began to dissipate.

She grabbed the handle by her breast, rotated around in her cupola, and panned left. Far left. Like, really far left.

The large blank-white and black-ringed target still stood in its place, undisturbed as it had been for the past thirty minutes or so since they'd all started.

She lowered her binoculars and tried to hide the equally blank look on her face. A single drop of sweat fell down the side of her head. Letting her equipment fall back against her collarbone, she felt around for her radio speaker, coiled her hoof around it, and held the long button situated on the side.

Clearing her throat and looking hard for the courage inside her, she spoke with only a slight shake, "S-Stuart, I think you should try to aim up a tad."

As if on cue from a set of wayward stage directions, she heard the low WHIRRRRRRR of the Stuart's 37mm cannon as it rose higher toward the heavens.

She bit her lip and added, "And... um, hit your own target, please."

A second of silence. And then a cough. And then two more seconds. She swore she heard somepony inside the Equestrian tank typing away at a keyboard.

"Oh."

WHIRRRRR!

She caught the sound of somepony suddenly letting out an overly-dramatic, painfully drawn-out, very-much-annoyed sigh, and for a second looked down to see if Bluebell was shaking her head. Instead, with her nose poking into the interior of her Comet to look at her crew—and Arco, who was sat with his hoof against a cheek, giving her a wave and a, "Hey, Duck,"—a gargantuanly zealous voice piped up.

"You bunch of generation smears. Pick a side!"

She stole a glance next to her and found the SOMUA putting away idly, its prior busied barrel having long stopped smoking after a much-longer-than-five-minute break. There was the culprit.

A familiar voice instantly joined in, prompting her to lower her radio and peel her ears back. She probably would have made things much, much worse anyway.

"Hey, SOMUA, shouldn't you guys figure out who sits where and stop changing?!" Pine asked, a hint of a snicker on her words not too helped by her chuckle afterward.

"It's not my fault Miss Liar over here thinks she can shoot better than me!"

"Liar?! You racist, lower-class-hating tantrum-thrower! Why don't you go back on Squawker and write some more childish messages?!"

Duck straightened her lips and pushed her grimace against her cheeks. All she could do was stare at nothing.

"I don't think you even know what lower-class is, you sugar-daddy's bride!"

Blank Check—if she was remembering the voice right—gasped sharply. Forest Fire sounded like she'd just been socked in the gut, but started whooping and hollering like she'd just witnessed a fire for the first time in her life. Duck screwed up her face, then jumped as Forest Fire seemed to find a sudden kindling in her belly.

"Both of you, shut up! It's people like you that are what's wrong with this country! We'll take away the guns, but we won't stop the crimes, will we?! Just let us be! STOP THE OPPRESSION!"

"Oppression?!"

"I'll show you oppression, you entitled millennial!"

"We're the same age!"

A terrible cacophony of thumps, creaks, and rattles emerged from both her speaker and the tank next to hers. Duck, honestly not really wanting to in the slightest, turned over to find the SOMUA rocking back and forth on its tracks like it was facing an earthquake by its lonesome.

"Get back here!"

"There's nowhere to go!"

As if to double the amount of turmoil currently taking place, somepony began to hum a single, long note on the radio. Three more voices quickly joined in, creating a harmony Duck was sure she would have loved literally any other time than right about now at this very second in time and space.

A quintet of groans.

"Uggghhh, they're doing their thing again!"

"Stop the yogurt, you friggin' hippies!"

In stark contrast to the jocks' much-too-loud, incessant screaming, Sweet Tea simply whispered, "Shiranu ga hotoke," probably assuming that nopony could hear her because, well, how could anypony, really? Duck was... currently wondering whether or not she was lucky her hearing had actually been honed by being around panzers all her life. As if they understood Tea—which they probably did, honestly—the other three crew members of the Cruiser hummed in quiet agreement. She probably would have to, considering. It was a fairly... fitting saying right about now.

Meanwhile, the Prench SOMUA next to her was still rocking to and fro as if on a coffee high, its occupants yelling, what she assumed to be kicking each other, and ferociously fighting by way of assuredly useless skill comparison. The Tiger's crew, which had been particularly quiet before all this apart from a few jabs, insults, and other mean things mostly addressed somepony else's way—usually herself—were reduced to primates sticking their hooves in their ears and literally shouting, "Lalalalalala, we can't hear you!"

Flurry's voice whisked Duck away from her troubled thoughts, inviting her back into the rather cozy interior of her Comet, if just for her friends alone. Graham clicked something on the radio, ceasing the other crews' voices in her ears. She appreciated the gesture and sent a smile toward the front of the admittedly clammy Comet, but could still hear at least two of her classmates' crews wailing like they were in the throes of death. "Are they speaking Japaneighse over there?" Flurry asked, pulling her nose away from the book she was about halfway through and shoving Duck back into reality before she could zip away again. Her horn was currently aglow with a soft white light. Some kind of flashlight so she could better read the text, Duck guessed.

Graham cut Duck off, who didn't really want to speak in the first place anyway. "The Stuart and the Cruiser both..."

Bluebell shook her head, an oddly unexpected motion that prompted Duck to gaze over to her. "Weebs..." she muttered under her breath.

Arco screwed up his face, and, unable to continue doing so and successfully use his optics, picked the former and glared weirdly at Bluebell. "Weebs? Really? Because they know a language apart from our own?"

Bluebell opened her mouth.

"You do realize it's a sign of respect, right? For Princess Celestia, for defying her home country and bravely defending us from Japaneigh even when it was her own people over there?" Graham added on, turning her head and scrunching up her muzzle at the Unicorn.

Preference, as well, Duck noted.

"Load of 'protection'," Bluebell scoffed, "remembering how they would have brought us into it..."

Duck's eye twitched. That was a low blow.

Graham tensed. "Guh...!" She grit her teeth and growled, a glare drawing on her eyebrows.

Duck licked her lips, trying her (barely) hardest to create a more friendly barrier to keep her tank and the other class' tanks in a separate spectrum. Preferably on opposite sides. Well, it was their turn, now that the Stuart had finished, so perhaps that would be a good diversion. Coordination and sighting-in were a lot easier if only one pony went at a time, as she'd been taught, and so they were going in a line, starting with her own Comet to provide an example, then proceeding with the SOMUA, the Cruiser, the Tiger, and finally the Stuart. She dared a glimpse to her right. "Did you, um... load the new shell in, Bluebell?"

Bluebell looked at her. She blinked. She looked over at the still wide-open breech. She blinked and looked at Duck again, clearly caught in the middle of a hectically busy road. Duck didn't dare change her expression, mostly out of... caution, but felt her upper lip pull her straight frown taut all the same. Bluebell seemed to catch on, though her response was lethargic at best. Dipping her head, she popped open the leftmost ammo box, reached for a shell first with just her magic and then with her hooves underneath, gyrated at the waist, and all but flung the 77mm shell into the cannon breech, which she quickly shut with a hoof.

As if the event had taken all the life out of her, Bluebell deflated with a heavy sigh and crossed her forelegs, frowning heavily at Duck. Realizing such an effort was going to go wasted—as Duck had to admit she provided a fairly... easy target, as evidenced by her now sudden looking away from Bluebell's eyes to stare at the nice bits of mechanics behind Arco's head—Bluebell shook her head again, reached down to her jacket's top left pleated pocket, and pulled out a small marker.

She had half a mind to shut herself up before she could say anything on the matter, but noticed Arco fidgeting to try and get more comfortable in his seat. Turning around—which proved a hard task, seeing as how she was sat on her haunches while completely hunched inside the Commander's position—she watched as Arco spit his tongue out of his closed mouth and let it flop onto his lip with the competence of a spaghetti noodle. Switching between bending his head forward and scooching his butt around on his seat, he let out a low curse that she immediately covered her ears from, and threw his head against his periscope with enough force that, had there been no rubber there to cushion such a thing, he would have taken an eye out.

Duck sucked in a breath, stopped herself, realized she was losing air, and, even as she realized she might run out before finishing her sentence, dared to ask, "Are you ready, Arco?"

Arco hummed to himself. He pulled away from the periscope, looked it up and down, wiped the lens with a hoof, caused Duck to cringe just out of his view, and pressed his head against it once more. "Think so!"

Duck blew out her remaining oxygen and started to steady her breathing. Whispering a series of okay's to herself, she looked up, raised her forelegs toward the blue sky and the white clouds peering in through the hatch above her head, and clambered about halfway out. She placed her hooves in front of her face, cleared her throat, and spoke into her radio, "Ready when you are. Just remember to aim a li-ittle bit higher this time, okay?" She had hoped her question came out sincere, instead of rude like she was now imagining it.

"Isn't he supposed to say something?" Bluebell's voice called out, just barely noticeable from the radio's position in front of Graham's face at the front of the Comet.

Duck stopped. Arco knew what he was going to say, right?

"Arco?" She asked, not noticing she hadn't actually finished her sentence and had just ended it with his name oh Gods could she make things any worse–

"Uh, 'on the way', right?"

Duck sighed. Lifting her head up before it could clunk against the roof of the Comet's turret, she beamed and, with a suddenly renewed vigor, straightened her posture and raised the radio to her mouth again, "You've got it!"

Flurry giggled. "Aww, Duck–"

Bluebell yawned. Loudly. And long...ly.

"What's that even supposed to mean?"

Duck began to fuss with her mane, trying to reach down in her throat and issue a reply. Graham saved her.

"It's to make sure the Loader..." Duck noticed the inflection in the Pegasus' voice as she trailed off, "...doesn't get knocked out by the breech flying backward."

Even if the hopefully furiously-rehearsed phrase was meant to keep her safe, Bluebell scoffed and leaned back in her Loader's seat... which didn't amount to much, unless you could call a couple inches or so a thorough "leaning back".

"Sounds pretty stupid to me."

Duck didn't even have to look at Flurry to know she had rolled her eyes up in the front.

Nevertheless, with Bluebell "leaning back in her seat", Arco was free to sputter, "On the way!"

Duck was on it in an instant.

"Fire!"

BOOM!

The Comet flinched, but Duck remained still, watching as their newly-freed shell soared through the air in a red blur for just a second before sending a shower of what she first thought to be dirt into the sky. Realizing her assumption, she yanked her binoculars up and glared through the lenses. Searching her small space for a short, almost frenzied period of time, she focused on the target Arco had hopefully been aiming at, craned her neck forward and her binoculars with it, and felt a smile cross her lips.

A medium-sized portion of the top right corner of their black and white had been blown completely off, which she knew to be a much weaker part of the wooden posts they'd been using for their practice today. As the smoke cleared, Duck couldn't help but shout, "You nicked it, Arco!"

A thump, and a sucking in of breath.

Arco must have hoof-pumped the wall behind him again.

"Gods... I need to stop doing that..."

She heard the telltale sounds of Bluebell fiddling with the spent casing following Arco's musings and turned her head to look at the SOMUA. As much as she didn't want to do this...

"Graham, patch me in to the other crews, please."

She could picture Graham saluting her, and debated looking inside to confirm her suspicion.

"Right away, ma'am!"

Duck opened her mouth to protest the title, but narrowed her eyes, sank in her seat a tad, and peeled her ears tightly against her head.

She seemed to have stumbled right into the middle of a very heated, very stupid argument.

"I'm the best– I'm the best Gunner I know. There's no Gunner better than me," Busy Body proclaimed dutifully.

At least they seemed to be done trying to physically fight each other...

"Please," Blank Check spat, "you can barely even aim with that thing."

Busy Body harumphed. "Mine's bigger."

What.

"It's your turn, you bunch of polished turds," Pine Needle chimed in all of a sudden. As much as Duck appreciated the attempt to help move their day's training along... couldn't Sweet Tea be a much better fit for a motivator? Her question was further backed up by the sounds of Pine going back to slurping away at her mocha.

"Why in Equestria would you polish a turd?" Forest Fire asked in a slightly hushed voice.

"HAW!" Busy Body shouted, causing Duck to jump with a start. "Me? A turd? I have more charm than every single one of you."

"Oh yeah?" A new voice asked. Was that Bit Rate?

"Part of my charismatic figure is that I'm super duper rich."

Silence. Pure, and utter, silence. A small crinkling of glass crackled through her radio. Candle Light was going to be buying new lenses again...

"Please, you can't get all high and mighty about something you were born into," Blank Check tutted.

"What about married into?"

Blank Check hissed like some kind of Equestrian snake. "We're...!" She jeered. "We're not married yet, you ridiculous stallionfoal."

Forest Fire threw her two bits onto the table. One was probably fake. The other was probably also fake. Like chocolate. "Wait, are your parents marrying you? Are you going to try and rule over Crumphill together, or something? Fancy a bit of specific land?"

"Uh!"

"Just saying."

Busy Body psst'd Forest Fire. Duck was unsure whether or not she actually knew Blank Check was literally sitting in the same tank as them, possibly in between the two.

"Just between you and me, it's her coltfriend buying her everything. She's like a spoiled brat but without the parents."

"My coltfriend will go much further lengths than both of you ever will!"

"Oh, he'll give some lengths. That's for sure."

"Why you–!"

"Hey!" Pine Needle, please! "You guys do know you'll never get elected, right?"

Forest Fire and Blank Check both were reduced to gritting their teeth and barely containing their rage on the radio.

Busy Body growled. "Rrrrrrrr! Hippies! You got given up at birth!"

"Excuse me?! Take that back!"

"Never!"

The SOMUA's turret, still very much screwed up from the shell that had sent it limply spinning about—despite the Vehicle Repair class' best efforts as the Tankery class had arrived that afternoon—juttered about as if in a star-spun daze before finally aiming straight at the Cruiser sitting next to it. The Cruiser's crew, verbally noticing with a quartet of short... noises... quickly cranked their turret around as well. Duck bit on her lip and swore she was drawing blood.

They had left enough space between each crew's tanks before they'd all started, and so Duck was able to watch as Mrs. Red, still wearing her uniform with garrison cap and all, slid into view on her hindlegs with a very angry look on her face. She waved her forelegs in a blur. "If you two end up missing each other in about two seconds, I will not hesitate to make you all fix the roadwheels on the Tiger!"

Duck sucked on her teeth. A fate worse than heck.

The two conflicted teams seemed to acknowledge the gravity of the results.

The Cruiser's turret faced forward.

The SOMUA's turret did the same.

"Yes ma'am, Mrs. Red," went a flurry of voices impressively quickly, even if a few of them sounded a little more than just a tad annoyed at having to say such a thing.

"You guys all seem to fight a lot for having banded together the other day!"

Duck shivered. When she had thought 'flurry of voices' just then, she wasn't subtly asking for Flurry herself to speak up next. Was somepony somehow listening to her conscience and creating some kind of avalanche of badness every day she was awake?

"What was that attempt to you all, then?! You worked together, didn't you?!" Flurry added, making sure to put a lot of emphasis on 'attempt'. A lot more than the word merited, which was a straight, solid zero.

"To take down that Pumpkinhead, yeah," one of the jocks replied honestly. Duck pulled her jacket tighter around her body.

"If we took you guys out first off, maybe you would have reconsidered," came the unfamiliar voice of Bit Rate, partially quiet but very, very calculated.

Flurry gasped. Duck dropped into the interior of the Comet to make sure that she was okay, finding her tensed up in her seat with her teeth borne and her forelegs shaking in front of her. Flurry swiveled about, seemingly to make sure nopony was watching, gazed at Duck's hopefully worried expression, opened her mouth to say something, closed it, looked away, hummed, puffed out her cheeks, and thereafter flushed them.

The radio was—admittedly—pleasantly calm for a while.

A whistle blew in the distance, slightly muffled by the thick Crumpish armour around the five. The P.E. class was probably starting to get up from stretching to do their laps for the day back over on the track.

Duck frowned at Flurry's clearly troubled expression and licked her lips again, searching for grace words. "E-excuse me, Flurry?"

At once, Flurry's face shifted, and she turned back around with a bounce and a wide smile like nothing had happened. "Yeah, Duck?"

"Remind me to tell Mrs. Red that we should assign designations for each crew."

BOOM!

The SOMUA's crew must have figured out whose turn it was to miss again.

Bluebell raised an eyebrow, a move Duck only noticed because she knew the Unicorn would say something after she'd just spoken.

"What's the point of that?"

Duck flexed her chin. "It's a lot easier to remember an actual name, rather than a single letter." Shaking her hoof at Bluebell, who was in the middle of beginning a retort, she reached for her radio and clicked it on. "Remind me. Who's Team A, again?"

One of the jocks laughed. "Pfft. It's us, idiot."

"Thought it was the Stuart," Pine Needle confessed.

"Isn't that us, actually?" Bit Rate asked.

"Who else would be 'Team A' but us? Really?" Busy Body questioned.

"Oh shut your Gods-"

Click.

Duck looked at Graham. Graham turned about in her seat and flashed Duck a grin, which she returned.

Bluebell nipped loudly.

Flurry smiled, cheeks rosy. "I'll try to remember."

Arco's chair clicked and creaked terribly. "Speaking of remembering, can we get some better seats for this thing?" At the mention of the request, Bluebell, Graham, and Flurry all seemed to move about in their own positions, necks craned about and eyes moving up and down it. "At least a cushion or something? My..." He gazed over at Duck, bit his lower lip, and continued with a cough, "...butt is hurtin' here."

Flurry began fanning herself fervently, lulling her tongue out and giving Duck a... look that caused her to, for the second time this week, widen her eyes at and quickly look away. "And it gets so hot in here... can we at least get a fan?" She almost interrupted Graham by tacking on, "...maybe just in the front...?" at the end.

"Hey!" Graham pointed at herself, making sure that everypony inside the Comet could see. Flurry had to crane her neck backward so as to not disturb the gesture with her little nose. "I'm the one having to sit up here all day. You guys at least get to move around back there!" She noticed Flurry's noticing her, and, shutting her eyes, waved a hoof up and down with a small, crooked grin. "I mean, we have to sit up here all day. No offense to you, Flurry!"

You couldn't exactly just prop a little desk fan inside a running tank, considering the danger the blade could pose if a bump or a glance sent the whole thing apart, and they'd be hard-pressed to find good seat covers at a price she assumed a regular high schooler would be able to afford, but... she couldn't just tell them that. She... didn't really like disappointing people, really.

Duck smiled, keeping it all inside like she always did.

BOOM!

"That's a great idea!"

At once, her four friends began talking excitedly amongst themselves, sometimes over each other, mostly not to her.

"Get some fuzzy dice," Bluebell suggested with a large laugh and a hoof to the ceiling.

"Pillows on the walls for those long days out here!" Arco proposed, fanning a hoof around the interior.

"Maybe some fuzzy blankets!" Flurry giddily advocated, hugging herself and humming.

"Could use a hula mare or something for the radio," Graham finished without even an ounce of emotion.

As if feeling the inviting warmth of such a thick cover over her, Flurry slowly let go of her side and brought up a hoof to suppress a prolonged yawn, failing miserably and letting her tongue roll freely out into the dust permeated air. The entire tank seemed to be fixated on her, and they all watched as Flurry blinked first one eye and then the other, nipping aloud.

"Swear to the Gods you better not make me..." Arco began, only to stop himself and raise a hoof over his own mouth with a glare on his brow. Working his jaw around as his head came back down, he shook all over and muttered, "Oh, I hate you so much..."

Duck tilted her head. It wasn't really her business. Was this business? Yawning? "Are you tired, Flurry?"

Flurry, rubbing at one of her eyes and completely betraying her bubbly attitude from earlier, lightly nodded, then put her gesture into more vocal form. "It's finally been a..." She yawned again. "...finally been a week since school's started, so I know how much sleep I can get away with during the day now. Finally settled into a good routine..."

Without even a bit of warning, Bluebell shot, "You at least realize you have terrible grades, right?"

Graham glared at once. "Bluebell!"

Flurry, on the other hoof, simply shrugged. Duck wasn't sure whether or not it was because she was simply too tired to argue, or genuinely feeling nothing toward the topic of her marks. That wasn't right, was it? Flurry was definitely a straight-A student. Everything about her screamed higher than average!

Was that too much of an assumption? Then again, it was a good assumption, but if it was wrong, she might be bringing up things that Flurry wouldn't want to talk about, and then Flurry would hate her, and Arco would too, and Graham would follow, and she was more than certain Bluebell already did so she'd just be stuck in a Cruiser Tank with four ponies angry at her for the entire year and they'd make everything terrible no she would make everything terrible because she had and oh Gods was that going to happen was she already on the path of terrible-ness could she stop it oh Gods she didn't actually say anything out loud again did she oh Gods–

"You know," Bluebell continued, "you can sleep in any other class, but you're driving here."

Flurry, already facing straight ahead through the little hole in the Comet's front step, rested her chin on her hooves and leaned forward. Not even regarding Bluebell, she asked, "Am I driving now?" in a decidedly hushed tone, as if speaking directly to her viewport.

Bluebell tried to give a clever retort. "I- you... guh." She crossed her forelegs and her eyebrows, frowning and looking away.

Duck watched a smile cross Flurry's face.

BOOM!

"I mean... not like I care about you or anything."

Duck spun about to stare at Bluebell, her eyes wide as saucers.

Bluebell scrunched her nose. Then she leaned over and yelled through the hole between the turret and the cabin, "I just want to make sure we don't end up getting shot because of you!"

"Mhm," came Flurry's mumbled response. The Alicorn was now laying the left side of her head on her L-shaped foreleg.

"Aww," went Graham, not helping in the slightest and doing much worse as she tilted her head and placed her hooves together sweetly, "Bluebell cares."

Bluebell spat, "Sh-shut up, Stuttermare!"

Graham pouted out her lower lip. She turned back to her devices. "I don't have a stutter." A few clicks, dials, and whirs later, and the rest of the class began to shape up in Duck's ears again. Graham must have quietly turned the volume down while they all spoke. Duck hoped she hadn't hit the transmission at any point. The jocks might make fun of them more than usual.

They seemed to be occupied, however, for the time being.

"You bunch of roid-ragers have enough hormones to build fifteen pimply teenagers!" Pine barked.

"Oh go to hell, you stupid green freaks!" Bit Rate shot from the brush, "All you guys are so Godsdamned full of yourselves! Just because you discovered a band doesn't mean everypony needs to hear about it!"

Pine uttered a vowel, presumably to try and defend her claims of some "Time Bomb's" sexiness.

"Oh, you're one to talk," went Busy Body, "you four are a bunch of weak-minded idiots. Nothing but shameful leaders of the next, horrible generation."

"Shut uuuuup," groaned Lily, her violent rubbing of her eyes coming through on her microphone, "stop using such big words."

"What, 'four'? Forgot you can't count higher than that," Busy Body quipped.

"Hate to be on their side for a second," Bit Rate confessed, "but they've got a much bigger gun than you do, Team Whatever."

"Let's see them try and hit us–"

Busy Body barely even finished her sentence before the low, monstrous, guttural whirring of the Tiger's 88mm turret began to rumble the Earth from the core.

Mrs. Red, having seemingly sat this one out for some reason or another, suddenly crackled, "Uh uh uh!" The turret stopped. "The track is that way, Team C!"

The turret went back around to face forward, but not before its entire crew collectively growled to themselves.

"You bunch of absolute–"

A hoof tapped on Duck's left shoulder, shaking her yet again from her brooding.

She looked wildly around for the source in every direction except the one it had actually come from, then stared down and blinked at Arco's little smile.

"You just don't know when to stop talking, do you?"

He must have noticed her fiddling with her mane again.

"Hey."

"Let's make a bet! Whoever shoots closer won't get shoved in a locker!"

She looked away for a second, but steadied herself with a few short breaths of air and faced him.

"Primrose, you better not miss!"

He blinked his purple eyes.

She her green.

"Don't worry about them." He chuckled, sitting back in his seat and making a loose U-shape with a foreleg. "Just focus on what you're doing, and make sure you yell at them, like, super loud." Did he know who he was giving admittedly sweet advice to? Arco tapped on his Gunner's sight. "Plus, we're the ones who beat all of them the other day. They can't deny that one no matter how hard they try." Was it a good thing to lord over beating a bunch of novices? Mind her, she didn't really have a lot of genuine, actually skilled experience either, but she knew a heck of a lot more than anypony else in the class did. It was like racing a 3-Inch Gun Carrier in a BT-5. There was practically no competition whatsoever.

"You know," Graham hollered, getting the attention of everypony as she turned in her seat, "we should all meet up and go do that tomorrow, after school!"

Duck looked away.

"What?" Bluebell asked.

"We should go shopping!" Bluebell instantly groaned. Graham continued, undeterred. "Buy some things for the Comet! We could head over to Quills And Sofas for most of it!"

Arco smirked, humming a little note. "Definitely won't turn down shopping with a group of girls..."

"Oh-!" She tapped her tongue against her bottom teeth, making a motion to hit Arco with her foreleg. Shaking her head, "Of course not. Bluebell?"

"I have... better things to do, actually!" Bluebell found a smile from way down in the depths of her soul, and, nodding wildly, made it widen. "Yeah! Yeah! I've actually got a bunch of important things to do tomorrow! You... wouldn't understand."

Arco didn't even look at Bluebell as he spoke, adjusting his periscope with a pair of untrained, learning hooves. "What, playing games and procrastinating on homework? Sounds like fun to me."

Bluebell harumphed with the ferocity of a stumped jaguar. She puffed out her cheeks. "You know what? Why don't I just tag along, y'know, make your day miserable?" She beamed, crossing her forelegs, sitting back in her Loader's seat and shutting her eyes, clearly satisfied with herself. "Ha ha! You'll see!"

Arco smirked to himself. Graham looked at him, doing the same.

Her gaze drew to Duck.

"What about you, Duck? Do you have anything planned tomorrow after school?"

Homework, homework, sitting in her apartment, homework, being by herself, doing nothing, eating, sleeping, homework, homework, homework, being alone...

"Uh..." A hoof went up to curl around a few locks of her mane. "I... no."

Graham whooped, throwing her hooves up... and slamming them directly into metal. She fell to a sitting position, rubbing her injured appendages as Arco howled like a hyena. "Gods, that was dumb." Her eyes panned to her left, went back, then went to her left again. "Hey, Flurry, how about... oh."

Duck looked over.

Flurry was fast asleep, her head buried in her makeshift pillow of a foreleg. Her snores were like a chainsaw, if a chainsaw could be quiet, kind of cute-sounding, and not even close to resembling steady. It was as if she was conscious of every single breath she took even as she dozed, and didn't think any one of them was up to some kind of personal standard of hers.

Graham giggled. "I think she's up for it."

Duck sucked in a breath through her nose...


...and shot it out her mouth... which ended up posing a bit of a problem for Mrs. Ballpoint's previously neat stack of papers lying on her desk next to her computer. They moved a bare centimeter.

Duck froze.

Mrs. Ballpoint slurped a string of noodles from her ramen bowl noisily.

She stopped.

Chewed.

Put the bowl down.

Tapped the papers back into place.

Looked back at her computer.

"I hope we don't end up making this a constant, Ms. Duck Bill..."

Duck shook her head, her mane almost slapping the bins containing Mrs. Ballpoint's second period Completed Work pile. She fidgeted in place, but realized that the teacher had either not seen her near bludgeon or was already wholly unimpressed as it already was. Considering Duck, and what she constantly realized about herself on a day-to-day, second-to-second basis, it was probably the latter. Definitely the latter. "No ma'am! I must have just..."

"Spaced out?" Mrs. Ballpoint finished her sentence before she could even realize how terrible a word usage that was. Her chair creaked as she adjusted its height about fifteen times. "As long as you learn, you can do whatever you want. But the second you get a bad mark, you're out. Do you understand me?"

Duck had to force herself not to salute. She nodded instead.

Mrs. Ballpoint's already well-known frown disappeared, coming back as a crooked smile. "Good, good." Her horn burned a bright blue, and Duck's forgotten AP Calculus book flew out from underneath Mrs. Ballpoint's desk in a slow loop before landing in Duck's outstretched hooves. Holding the thick book by its base, she turned her head and dumped it into her bag at her teacher's new words. "Make sure to do tonight's homework, by the way. There are some tough questions in there, and I would like to gauge what all you all happen to know tomorrow in class."

"Yes ma'am."

"You're doing very well, Duck. Keep it up."

"Yes ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."

Mrs. Ballpoint flailed a hoof toward the open door to her left. "Go on home, now. Have a good night."

"You too, ma'am," Duck bid adieu, bowing her head and trotting past the classroom's threshold to a quartet of bright eyes and a trio of big smiles.

"Geez, took you long enough!" Arco laughed, turning around and beginning to head toward the front commons as their temporary conductor. "Thought for sure you'd jumped out the window or something!"

No, that would be another classmate, in another class.

"I'm super hungry, you guys!" Graham exclaimed, "You wanna go out and get some food?"

Duck actually had a nice bowl of dry cereal waiting at home.

"Sorry, homework."

Flurry yawned, uselessly flitting a hoof about as she walked. "Yeah, ahhhh-uhhh, same."

Graham pouted, but straightened back up, adjusted her backpack, and smirked. "Fine! But you guys owe me a burger now!"

"What?!" Arco gasped.

Flurry narrowed her eyes, frowning. "You're on, missy. But I pick the place."

Graham hummed. "Sounds fair to me."

"She'll pick, like, some kind of vegan place," Arco informed her, rolling his tongue out and staring dead-eyed at the ceiling for a second. Looking over at Flurry, he added, "You damn freak."

Flurry took much larger steps over the metal threshold to the commons than the task seemed to require in Duck's head, who stepped on it and instantly shivered at the cold that met her hoof. Her cheeks newly reddened, she made sure to remember to mimic the Alicorn and follow her moves the next time she had to do the same. They neared the long row of doors that marked the entrance to the school—she guessed now their exit, actually—and, after Arco moved to push Flurry with his elbow and instead found empty air, which was met with a dry laugh and a blown Alicorn raspberry, they pushed their way through, trotted across a short carpet, and found their way outside.

A heavy breeze blew across the front courtyard, taking with it in its natural loop-de-loop a long trail of leaves and assorted sticks to the heavens and the low-hanging roof of the school itself. Duck followed the other four ponies as they descended the front steps and found the first block of concrete leading to the border of the building's grounds. She grabbed at her messenger bag's shoulder quietly, then pulled a bit of her jacket closer to her chest as a shiver shook her four legs terribly. Despite being the tail-end of summer, she was already beginning to feel a small, autumn chill in the air. Maybe she was just imagining it, noting the lack of a reaction in her friends' hooves. Maybe she was just being silly. Maybe just thinking about being cold right now was making her cold. Yeah. That seemed reasonable. Science was weird like that, which was why she needed to make sure she worked on her Oceanography homework extra hard tonight.

Still though... it was... fairly nice out today.

As she walked, taking up the caboose of their admittedly half-attempted train, she looked up to the sky and narrowed her eyes at the bright, blinding sun gracefully greeting her with a now-noticeably much-too-warm embrace. A few stray Pegasi—some carrying bags, obviously students, and some moving the nearby clouds, obviously part of the Weather Patrol—moved about in what Duck pondered to be their own kind of sidewalk, one with no strict speed limit but still bearing notable boundaries all the same. Some students still dotted the courtyard, talking amongst themselves excitedly about their plans for the rest of the day but paying her and her companions no mind. Duck... smiled. She preferred it that way. If no one bothered her, she wouldn't bother them.

The wind danced about here and there, finding different partners in nature to shimmy toward the sky with and, apparently, not feeling satisfied with any one of them. In the distance, she could make out a few cars driving to and fro, probably some of the last teachers heading home to grade papers and plan lessons. Mrs. Red had stayed behind after Tankery class, and was probably going to be the last one remaining at the school besides the late-night janitor tonight. She'd been adamant that everypony focus on a different goal tomorrow, focusing on formations and moving together as a convoy to strengthen their trust and build their awareness, noting that, after what she'd seen today, they definitely needed it. Remembering the arguments and fighting and yelling built up a lump in her gut, but she forced it back down even as she shook and tried to remember her bowl of cereal.

She attempted to return to her friends' conversation, which had faded away as she retreated to her mind, but stopped when she heard something... different. Odd.

A constant beat straying from any form of variation.

Duck looked around, an eyebrow cocked, for somepony playing with a basketball.

No, no. It was much lighter than that.

She looked to her left, swearing she found the culprit idly tapping a hoof against the brick.

No, not that either.

Then, what...?

...

They were about halfway across the courtyard when Duck finally made it out.

CHK. CHK. CHK. CHK.

And her whole body seized up.

She froze on the spot, her breathing taking up prominence in her pounding ears.

Flurry stopped first, turning to face Duck. Arco next, followed by Graham and Bluebell together.

The wind whistled.

CHK. CHK. CHK. CHK.

Duck stared at nothing.

Something came into view.

And she barely looked up to face it.

To face them.

Her whole body was shaking violently, and she couldn't find an ounce of strength within her to halt it.

CHK. CHK. CHK. CHK.

Her friends became aware of the noise, now, and followed her gaze.

Somepony gasped, and she wasn't sure whether it was her, or one of her friends.

CHK. CHK. CHK.

They stopped, knowing they were within earshot.

"Duck Bill, sweetie."

A lump went through her throat with relative ease, barely noticeable at all.

She blinked.

Her mother was still standing before her, her uniform and garrison cap as pressed and proper as always. Her chin was lifted to the sky, as if smelling something she didn't appreciate one bit. She hummed, and the heavy frown across her lips became a small smirk.

"I'd heard that Ponyville's Tankery class had started back up, and also that you were the one leading it..." She shook her head at the last few words and began to make her way closer to Duck. Her hoofsteps clicked and clacked against the concrete blocks. "I believed only one of those things, but I..." she looked up and blinked at the swimming, dazed green that met her, "...had to investigate the other. And the smell of iron and oil isn't something I can't smell, dear."

Duck worked her jaw around, pushing out the beginnings of vowels and consonants that could never, ever, come to fruition.

Her mother stopped a few inches from her.

She looked down with a glare.

"And just what in the hell do you think you are doing, young mare?"

Duck choked.

Her mother shook her head, rolling her eyes and looking up, then back down. "Unbelievable. Sixteen years of age, and still barely able to get a word out. I thought that letting you get your wish of going to public school would help you engage, but it seems that I was gravely mistaken." She sighed. "Duck, sweetie, I'm talking to you."

Duck lifted her chin. Her mother's figure danced around in her eyes, nearing an indecipherable blur.

"Just where in your terrible mind did joining this all seem like a good idea?" Her mother let the words hang for a pregnant pause. She continued. "You are unfit for a task such as a Tank Commander, let alone an entire team!" She lowered her head and pushed it forward, each one of her words ending as hot breaths on her scalp. "Your failure atop the mountain and all the embarrassment and disappointment it wrought is more than enough evidence."

"Hey!"

Duck sucked in a breath and spun to her left in tandem with her mother to her right.

Flurry stood from the rest of her friends, lips in a toothy frown and her head lowered. She glared at Duck's mother from between her brow. "Don't you talk to her like that!"

Duck's mother simply hummed, lips upturned and cheeks bunched. "Ah, young Flurry Heart. I should have known my little Ducky would make friends with Changeling-spawn."

Flurry blanched.

Arco grit his teeth, looking downright terrified.

Graham took a step forward. Arco pulled her back.

Bluebell was saying nothing.

Duck's mother seemed to notice.

"And what about you, little lady?"

Bluebell looked up.

"Care to... sputter some kind of phrase like your friend before you to try and," she clucked her tongue, feigning a collapse, "aw, make me cry?"

Bluebell opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, closed it once more, twiddled her hooves, adjusted her white collar, and finally, simply, replied, "No."

Her mother hummed, then turned back to Duck with a sinister look about her.

"If you continue to take this class, this... treasonous position..." Duck almost believed her mother to be falling to her haunches to get on the level of herself, but realized she was simply stepping closer, and closer, and closer. "...you will bring nothing but shame to our family name that we've all worked so hard to maintain all these years. Every minute of your life, wasted! Every single thing I ever taught you, useless! Every time your own sister wakes up and realizes what she can't do anymore, forgotten!"

It was at that point that Duck looked back over at the lone mare who had stayed her position beyond her friends.

Her Commander's uniform blew in the breeze, one sleeve in particular.

Her garrison cap remained fixated to the top of her head, despite the wind.

Her single, thick braid wavered as if part of a song.

Pumpkin Seed stood in silence, watching her, head lowered.

The crutch acting as the rest of her right foreleg turned about idly.

The empty air the blowing sleeve occupied seemed to bear a hungry shadow.

Her mother drew her back to her reality.

"Leave Tankery, or none of us will ever speak your name again."

She gasped, the maternal figure in front of her losing focus in an instant.

She looked for words.

She blinked, first only once, then rapidly. Her cheeks began to grow wet, and her eyes darted to the ground in response.

And her mother laughed.

"I suppose I know what your answer is."

She turned on her heel and trotted away, her hoofsteps clicking and clacking against the concrete.

Duck's rattling body gave her a glimpse of Pumpkin Seed.

The older mare lingered for a second, staring at her in silence.

And then she followed their mother's suit.

Duck raised up a foreleg. She sputtered out noises, hoping that the shifting figure in her sights would turn around.

But she fell to her haunches and wept.

She barely even paid attention to the horrendous torrent of hooves that drew her way, and could only ignore the ponies desperately trying to call the name of a mare who didn't deserve such a wonderful thing.

She couldn't even control her screaming.